Altar

An altar is an area in the Twisted Treeline that grants vision and a powerful buff to the team that controls it. There are two altars on opposite sides of the map. A champion captures an altar by standing on top of it for roughly 8 seconds. When more champions stand on a single altar, it is captured in a shorter amount of time. When captured, an altar seals for 90 seconds during which it cannot be recaptured. Champions standing on an altar are visible to the enemy team.

Contents

Gameplay

Two altars controlled: Killing a minion or a monster restores 1% of the maximum health of the killing champion.

Each altar has sets of quotes. Some of these quotes are specific to champions aligned with the Shadow Isles.

The amount captured decays over time (if a capture is interrupted) at the same rate as it increased regardless of how many champions opposed to the capture are present. A capture can be halted by having a champion opposed to the capturing team on the altar, but this only pauses the capture; in order to reverse the capture, the capturing champion(s) must be knocked off the altar. Capturing is unaffected by recalling (in that, a champion recall while capturing).

Altars spawn at 3:00 and are locked for 90 seconds upon capture, but can't be locked by the same team again, until control has shifted and the altar is then reclaimed.

When captured by any Shadow Isles champion (including Evelynn and Thresh):

"The living must die!"

"Make them suffer!"

"This place will be their tomb!"

"Bind their spirits to the Shadow Isles!"

Trivia

The phrase, "Alas, poor Yorick," is a reference to the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

The phrase, "Are you lonely, Yorick?" is told with sarcasm.

The phrase, "Morderkaiser... are you also a prisoner?" is a reference to the Iron Maiden Song The Prisoner, which was also the previous title of the Children of the Grave Buff.

The phrase, "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!" is a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The west altar behaves aggressively against the Shadow Isles champions, reminding them of their apparent errors, mocking them, and questioning them. On the other hand, the east altar is friendly to them, asking them for help, glorifying them and offering them his service.

The West altar is often referred to as the 'Lady' and the east altar as the 'Lord' due to the images that appear after capturing them and their voices.

Twisted Fate'sGate is a useful way to capture both altars in quick succession because its range is slightly larger than the distance between the two altars.

The western altar's quote, "This place was once so... beautiful.", references how the Ruination transformed the Blessed Isles into the Shadow Isles.

The two spirits that appear when an altar is captured are husband and wife. They died there thousands of years ago.[1]

The face that the East Altar is remembering is most likely the spirit from the West Altar, his wife.

The reason why Evelynn has no quotes coming from the altars is that Riot didn't want to give too much information about her lore. But they did, however, confirm that she did come from the Shadow Isles.[2]

Riot also stated that Evelynn and Thresh will get Altar quotes, but that this will need time.

The altar voices could also be the twisted King and his dead wife from Kalista's lore.

A useful thing to note is that starting to recall will not interrupt the capture process, and that the time for the capture process with one champion on the altar is identical to the time required to complete recalling (less if multiple champions are capturing). Therefore, starting to recall just after beginning to capture an altar is an efficient way to get back to base promptly while still securing the altar.